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Memorial Cup: Top prospects abound at exceptional tournament: Cox

In an unusual year, it’s believed at least seven first-round picks are participating in the tournament in Saskatoon.

Portland Winterhawks defenceman Seth Jones, widely expected to be the No. 1 pick in next month's NHL draft, moves the puck against the Halifax Mooseheads during Memorial Cup action in Saskatoon last week.
(Liam Richards / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

SASKATOON—In most years, scouts and hockey executives flock to the site of the Memorial Cup to observe players they’ve already drafted, rather than players they hope to draft.

Veteran teams filled with 19- and 20-year-olds tend to win this tournament, after all, not those led by 17-year-old stars with one eye on the Cup and the other on the NHL entry draft a month later. Shawinigan won it last year and then didn’t have a player selected in the NHL draft until Anton Zlobin went to Pittsburgh with the 173rd choice.

There are always, of course, exceptions to this general rule. In 1995, for example, Bryan Berard’s Detroit Junior Red Wings and Wade Redden’s Brandon Wheat Kings were part of the four-team group that qualified for the Memorial Cup tourney. The next month, Berard went first overall in the NHL draft, followed by Redden.

Never in the history of the event, however, has there been an exception quite like this year.

In a hotly contested tournament at the Credit Union Centre — well, at least until Halifax blew out London 9-2 on Tuesday night — Saskatchewan is turning out to be an unprecedented final staging ground for a large group of elite teenagers battling for the top rungs of next month’s NHL draft in Newark, N.J.

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Nathan MacKinnon has already registered a hat trick in a single period. Max Domi’s between-the-legs feed to Bo Horvat on Monday night is destined to be replayed endlessly on highlight reels, providing some cloud cover for Domi’s minus-8 rating in the past two games.

Seth Jones, the big Portland blue-liner, is being more carefully scrutinized than ever before as the Winterhawks try to win the third Memorial Cup in team history.

Among three teams — Halifax, Portland and London — there are 17 draft-eligible players, including the top three North American prospects and possibly another three to five first-rounders.

Jones, MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin of the Mooseheads are one, two and three on NHL Central Scouting’s list of North American draft eligibles. That has never before happened at the Memorial Cup.

There are some scouts who project that three London players — Domi, Horvat and defenceman Nikita Zadorov — are also possible top-10 choices.

Along with Jones, Portland has two forwards, Nicolas Petan and Oliver Bjorkstrand, who are rated in the top 40 by Central Scouting but could sneak into the first round if somebody likes them enough. Few imagine that Halifax goalie Zach Fucale won’t go somewhere in the first round.

So it’s an unusual year.

Only the host Saskatoon Blades, without a single draft-eligible player and nine players already claimed by NHL clubs, are the kind of team you usually encounter at this tournament.

It’s one event among many evaluation tools for NHL scouts, and no scout worth his salt is likely to eschew all other data just because a player soars or stumbles at the Memorial Cup.

That said, it’s a way to compare top-rated teenagers under the hot white light of intense competition on relatively even footing.

A player like the six-foot-five Zadorov, then, suddenly might look a little different in comparison to Jones, seen by many as the player likeliest to go first overall to Colorado next month.

Zadorov was rated 22nd by Central Skating in its final North American rankings. He hits hard and has some offensive finish. He’s not as smooth or polished as Jones and couldn’t do much to slow down the Mooseheads on Tuesday, but there’s not as big a gulf between them as one might imagine.

Darnell Nurse of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds is not here, but he’s built similarly to Jones and Zadorov. So if you’re Colorado with the No. 1 pick, might you be wiser to go with the electric MacKinnon, who is ripping this tournament to shreds, and try to get a D-man later?

After all, recent years have shown the first defenceman taken isn’t always the best defenceman in the draft. Erik Johnson (first overall, 2006) and Victor Hedman (second, 2009) have yet to fulfil their promise.

Jones may be better than either Johnson or Hedman. But the draft seems to tell us you can find blue-liners later, but the chance to get your hands on an explosive attacker may not come around again for years.

We’ve seen Jones vs. MacKinnon once here before a large national TV audience, and it was all MacKinnon in a Halifax victory. Jones bounced back with a plus-4 performance on Monday night against London, but MacKinnon was electric against the overmatched Knights and has been the best player in the tournament with eight points in three games.

This is a team competition, but there are individual battles brewing within, making this a unique Memorial Cup.

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